And their comrades joyfully questioned them, when they saw them close at hand; and to them spoke Aeson's son grieved at heart: "My friends, the heart of ruthless Aeetes is utterly filled with wrath against us, for not at all can the goal be reached either by me or by you who question me.

He said that two bulls with feet of bronze pasture on the plain of Ares, breathing forth flame from their jaws.

And with these he bade me plough the field, four plough-gates; and said that he would give me from a serpent's jaws seed which will raise up earthborn men in armour of bronze; and on the same day I must slay them.

This task--for there was nothing better to devise--I took on myself outright." Thus he spake; and to all the contest seemed one that none could accomplish, and long, quiet and silent, they looked at one another, bowed down with the calamity and their despair; but at last Peleus spake with courageous words among all the chiefs: "It is time to be counselling what we shall do.

Yet there is not so much profit, I trow, in counsel as in the might of our hands.